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CUP: Big Weekend For The Biff
Written by: Tom Jensen   
02/27/2009
Las Vegas, NV
 
Greg Biffle finished third at Las Vegas Motor Speedway last year and clearly will be one of the drivers to be reckoned with this weekend. (Photo: LAT Photographic) ยป More Photos

When he stepped out of his Roush Fenway Racing Ford Fusion last Sunday night at Auto Club Speedway, a dejected Greg Biffle said his team ought to fire him. Six days after the fact, he’s glad they didn’t.

Biffle had the fastest car in the closing laps of the Auto Club 500, but during the final pit stop of the race, he ran over his air hose, dropping him deep in the lead pack and out of contention for a race victory. Thanks to a furious charge to the front, Biffle ended the race in fourth place, but he definitely wasn’t happy to have thrown away a potential victory.

But all of that is in the rear-view mirror this weekend at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, site of Sunday’s Shelby 427. Biffle, along with his four teammates at Roush Fenway, will be one of the favorites at the 1.5-mile LVMS oval.

“After a couple days I quit thinking about it,” Biffle said of last week’s miscue. “I think when you first get out of the car you’re really upset about it, and the first day and then the next day, but probably after Tuesday I quit thinking about it. I certainly exaggerated what my feeling were. I was like, ‘Those guys should fire me for taking a car that fast and finishing fourth with it,’ but it was kind of a joke. We had a really good car and it’s tough when you have to go home not winning a race like that, but there are so many factors.”

Biffle finished third here last year and clearly will be one of the drivers to be reckoned with this weekend.

“I’m excited to be at another mile-and-a-half, two-mile venue for the season,” Biffle said Friday at LVMS. “We ran really good here last year, so I’m hoping to pick
up where we left off in Las Vegas. Junior (Dale Earnhardt Jr.) and I had a pretty good race in the closing laps at this place, so, hopefully, we start off in that same area. We’re coming off a pretty good run at California, so I’m pretty excited about our chances here.”

In fact, said Biffle, he’s going for it this weekend. “We feel like we’re gonna have pretty fast race cars,” Biffle said. “We had the luxury of one of our cars tire tested here, so we may have some information, but at the same time I’m gonna guarantee we’re coming off the truck exactly how we finished here last year because it was pretty good. … We’re mostly trying to win here. We’re not points racing. We definitely want to win early in the season like we weren’t able to do last year.”

Tom Jensen is the Senior NASCAR Editor for SPEEDtv.com, the former Executive Editor of NASCAR Scene and a contributing Editor for TruckSeries.com. He is the author of “Cheating: The Bad Things Good NASCAR Nextel Cup Racers Do In Pursuit of SPEED,” and has appeared on television and radio shows to discuss NASCAR racing. Jensen is the past President of the National Motorsports Press Association. Jensen is the 1997 National Motorsports Press Association Writer of the Year and has won numerous national and state awards for news reporting, columns and feature writing. The Answer Man is back at SPEEDtv.com. Tom Jensen answers your questions during every race week and looks forward to hearing from you - please e-mail it to

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